The fine line between healing and cheating

Consider the following medical procedure. A doctor removes blood from an athlete. He isolates and concentrates certain components and injects those components back into the athlete.

Is that legal? Is it ethical?

Now let’s replace “certain components” with specific examples.

First, the doctor isolates the platelets, concentrates them and injects them into a diseased area of tendon, ligament or muscle. Or the doctor isolates a natural antagonist of the protein IL-1, concentrates it, and injects it into an athlete’s aging knee.

Now let’s say that the doctor instead isolates the red blood cells, concentrates them, and places them back into the athlete. Since the presumed goal of this treatment is to increase the oxygen-carrying capability of blood and therefore increase endurance, this “blood doping“ process is illegal in sports.

There are many other examples of scientific or medical treatments that blur the lines between sports medicine and performance enhancement. For example, athletes can undergo Lasik, a procedure that reshapes the cornea, to improve eyesight. After injuries, athletes can use tissue from donors to replace torn ligaments in their bodies.

The distinction between legal and illegal treatments is arbitrary. It’s easy to say that some of them only treat injuries and medical conditions and help an athlete return to compete. The others work to actually improve performance, whether or not a medical condition or injury exists.

In that sense, one category is morally acceptable, while one isn’t. It’s appropriate to use science to heal but not to use some of the same treatments to enhance performance.

We are very close, however, to a time when there is essentially no difference. For example, when is using a medicine to slow the effects of age on an athlete’s body legal, and when is it illegal?

For years, pro athletes have rationalized (after they are caught, of course) their use of anabolic steroids or HGH as treatments to help them recover from injuries. They claim that their bodies don’t heal as quickly as they did when they were younger. That argument receives cynicism and no reversal of their suspensions.

If an athlete uses HGH or anabolic steroids or other treatment that we don’t even know about to rebuild muscle size after a knee or shoulder injury, or if he uses testosterone to restore his levels to what they were in his twenties, those uses are illegal.

Note the area of damaged articular cartilage (red arrow) surrounded by healthy articular cartilage.On the other hand, athletes have been increasingly flying to Germany to undergo Orthokine treatments. Others receive a series of injections synthesized in the laboratory out of the combs of roosters. Those treatments aim to treat or reverse the wear and tear of the cartilage in their joints – the effects of long careers. Those treatments are currently both legal and ethical.

On the podcast B.S. Report with Bill Simmons, author Malcolm Gladwell observes that these standards seem to apply only to athletes.

“I am a baseball pitcher. I hurt my arm. And I have a reasonable expectation that through the use of human growth hormone, I can recover in one week instead of two weeks. That’s apparently illegal. Why is that illegal? Why is there a rule that says I can’t use cutting-edge medical technology to recover faster so I can go back to doing my job?”

He contrasts that example with a hypothetical 50-year-old construction worker who performs demanding physical labor. If he wanted to take human growth hormone or testosterone to help get out of bed every morning and do his job a little better, it’s doubtful that people would chastise him.

“It is only because we have a very, very particularized, and almost fetishistic notion of purity in sports that we insist that the athlete has to be treated separately from the construction worker, even though they both have the same physical needs,” Gladwell argues.

What about the philosophic argument that medical advances could prevent injuries? There is a common myth that surgeons perform Tommy John operations on pitchers with normal ligaments in their elbows to make them even stronger. That might sound preposterous. But if that procedure was actually done – not to improve performance, but to prevent injury later in a pitcher’s career – would the public dismiss the idea as quickly? I’ve seen many pitchers and their parents in my practice who would sign up immediately.

I’m not advocating that sports organizations stop testing for performance-enhancing drugs or make all of these treatments legal. But we are approaching a time when there is a very fine line between treatments to aid recovery from injury, preventing the effects of injury, and improving performance. Sports organizations, parents, coaches, athletes and society will have to decide where to draw that line.

Note: The following post appears in a modified format as my sports medicine column in the May 7, 2013 issue of The Post and Courier.

2 Responses to The fine line between healing and cheating

A lot of the ethics over this stuff is misplaced. It’s based on media coverage–a human thing, not scientific. It’s pretty similar to defining a witch in an African community where someone got sick.

It’s up to the scientists/physicians, to run small-scale studies on this stuff and whether it helps or not. Since the 80’s and all the indictments against HGH and steroids because of the Ben Johnson scandal (not to mention Germans in the 70’s) physicians have stayed eons away from AAS (anabloic-androgenic steroids), HGH and testosterone.

A lot of anti-aging quacks have picked it up and a lot of people have started taking this stuff because it can have some positive effects (energy, joints, strength) but can also have negative effects (cancer?).

I think this stuff should be used in injury recovery, especially if things are moving a long slowly. I don’t think it should be a crux or a necessity, most people heal fine.

But some of this stuff has the potential to help (Google scholar papers) and it should be tried in some small studies (already has). Maybe I’m stating something that’s already begin to happen but in some places it’s moving the other direction.

I guess I don’t think it should be used systematically but rather for injury recovery on a selective basis.

[…] In my latest column for The Post and Courier, I explain how scientific and medical advances are blurring the lines between treatments that help athletes heal and those that enhance performance. […]

Please note: I cannot and will not provide specific medical information within these comments, just as I won't anywhere else. Also, I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive, off-topic, or spam. If you have questions, please read My Comments Policy.

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About Dr. David Geier

I am an orthopaedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist in Charleston, South Carolina.

On this blog, on my podcast, and in articles for numerous publications and in media interviews, I aim to provide you leading commentary and education on injury treatment and prevention to keep you performing at your best!

I am an orthopaedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist in Charleston, South Carolina.

On this blog, on my podcast, and in articles for numerous publications and in media interviews, I aim to provide you leading commentary and education on injury treatment and prevention to keep you performing at your best! Learn more about me >>

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